


Of Chargers and their ailments

by otherwiseestella



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, Bull's Chargers, Canon Trans Character, Domestic Fluff, Elfroot, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Innuendo, M/M, Menstruation, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 10:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otherwiseestella/pseuds/otherwiseestella
Summary: Krem is always up a six bells. Always.Unless he's lying in his tent feeling sick as a dog. The Iron Bull goes to investigate.This is a fluffy hurt/comfort fic about Krem and Iron Bull's relationship. Oh, how I love these two.





	Of Chargers and their ailments

**Author's Note:**

> *This fic contains an FTM character discussing menstruation and experiencing distress around this: if this feels like it might trigger you, please feel free to click away.*
> 
> [As ever, I am a cis female. I've done my best to do thorough research and treat this topic sensitively, but if I've fucked up, please tell me!]

Krem joined the Chargers two and a half months ago. Bull knows this because right now he’s sitting on a chair that’s slightly too small, trying to balance the books.

Krem’s pestered the Chief more than once about how he wants paid fair, wants those first weeks when he was healing taken off his paycheck, plus his food and medicine. Won’t take kindness when it smells like pity. Bull likes that. But he’s not going to sit and work out how much nug stew and elfroot poultice the ‘vint cost. Not when he can hear the whoosh-smash of axes into ale barrels, and the crackle of nuts popping in the fire. He pushes the accounts to one side. They’ll get paid at months end, as usual, unless they get a big job in before then.

Krem says anything, he’ll remind him how much he’s saved them in kit. The way he can rip old rags apart and make them into something sturdy and serviceable shouldn’t be allowed. He’s like a mage with his needle and thread, quick, secret, flawless. Weird little ‘vint. From the other side of camp, he hears two of his latest recruits start up music on their flutes, and the scrape of the ladle on the pot that means dinner.

Krem joined the Chargers two and a half months ago. He knows this because there’s fucking blood in his fucking smallclothes and the last vial of the potion he’s been taking for the last seven fucking years is lying empty on his bed. Empty. It isn’t a complicated potion, apparently. Stitches could almost certainly make it. Kaffas, he could probably make it if he actually knew what was in the damn thing. But he doesn’t, and he can’t ask Stitches, because he hasn’t been paid. And it costs. He knows it’s dear, always had to save for it, steal more than once when he was a few coins short. And sure, Stitches might give it to him on credit, but he can’t do that for every stray Bull recruits, and Krem shouldn’t get favours just because he’s Lieutenant. He’ll just have to wait until Bull pays him. Two weeks, most likely. And until then, he’s going to have his fucking courses.

He could cry. Savagely, he pulls his gloves off, doesn’t bother to pile his armour neatly like he usually does. Let it lie on the floor. It might disguise his body well enough, but even it can’t disguise what his fucking traitor insides are doing to him right now. Methodically, mechanically, as if trying not to notice what he’s doing, he pulls a roll of clean rags from his pack, folds them, shoves them between his legs.

Outside the tent, he can hear the low sound of the Chargers round the fire. They’re popping chestnuts. They’re in season, and he remembers standing by the fire with his mother, in the kitchen, listening to them pop and hiss over the flames, eating them with salt and burnt fingers. And of course, now, he can feel tears behind his eyes. Well, that’s not going to fucking happen. He covers himself in his blanket, draws it right up over his head like he did when he was small, and casts a half-arsed prayer to Andraste that in the morning he’ll wake up and everything will just be the way it should be. 

Krem joined the Chargers two and a half months ago, and this is the first time in a month that he hasn’t been at morning drills. To be specific, the first time he hasn’t led morning drills. In fact, if Bull’s being entirely accurate, it's the first time that morning drills haven’t happened since Krem invented them, said they were good for form and morale. (He still hasn’t got round to telling him its working, doesn’t want his head getting any bigger.) He’s seen some weird shit, but he’s never seen anyone as keen for getting up at six bells and making sleepy soldiers practice shield manoeuvres as Krem. Even when his ribs were fucked from the tavern fight, he’d still been out barking orders, correcting formations. Against all odds, the Chargers like it. Makes ‘em feel ... legitimate. A slicker force.

So he must be pretty sick, or something. Bull tries not to feel worried as he looks across the camp, but he can’t see him, and his tent-flaps are still down. Six bells has come and gone, and the Chargers are sitting round the newly-banked fire. Dalish is stirring a pot of porridge, and one of the dwarf twins – Segnar – is pouring tea. Bull takes a cup of it, starts towards Krem’s tent. Well, technically, its Krem and Bull and Rocky’s tent, but Rocky’s taken to sleeping outside wrapped in blankets, something about the stars and a map he bought in Denerim, and he’s not likely to move back in until the first cold snap. Surface dwarves. Strange guys, even if they don’t think they’re gonna fall into the sky.

‘Hey, Krem’, The Bull is quiet. 

There’s a low groan from inside then tent. Then the sound of fabric, a blanket, a shirt.

‘Come in’.

Its dark inside the tent, muggy, and the smell of sweat and blood hits Bull as soon as he walks in. Shit. Blood means Krem’s been – 

Oh. Oh. Fuck.

He sits himself down by the lump in the bedroll that is groaning like his lieutenant.

‘Good morning, sunshine’.

‘Fuck you, Chief.’ Krem’s voice sounds strained. Bull puts the tea down beside the bedroll, about where he reckons Krem’s head might be.

‘Want me to get Stitches?’ Keep it light, matter of fact, Bull thinks. Don’t mention the way your pulse quickened when you smelt blood, the way your head feels heavy like it’s holding some of his pain.

‘M’fine’, the lump under the blanket says, but then it sniffs, a sound awfully close to holding back tears.

‘Tell that to thirty five Chargers who got up at six bells, then.’

That’s when the blanket finally moves. Krem sits up, almost knocking the tea over, and looks at The Iron Bull.

He looks like shit. His face is dirty from crying, and there are circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept much. Pale, too, and he’s got that crease around his mouth that Bull’s noticed that he gets when he’s in pain.

 

‘Fuck. Kaffas. Sorry Chief. I slept through dawn.’ He brushes the back of his hand across his eyes, hard, like that’ll stop Bull noticing the tears. ‘I’ve never slept through dawn, not since I signed up in Tevinter. Won’t happen again.’

He looks mortified.

Bull smiles at him. A real smile, not his usual shit-eating grin. 

‘I’ll let it go. I’ll let it go and bring you breakfast, if you tell me what’s got you looking like shit.’

Krem gives him a look. It’s halfway between amused and calculating.

‘You losing that Qunari sense of smell? On my fucking courses. Maker reminding me he’s got a sense of fucking humour.’

Chief’s being nice. Too nice. Its fucking unnerving, too close to being pity, him just a damsel in distress. He’d rather have the shits, frankly. The shits or something from a barmaid somewhere. Something proper. Something to tell the rest of the Chargers so Bull wouldn’t have to lie for him. So he could be soundly mocked and everyone could make jokes about staying away from the latrine.

Bull looks like he’s about to speak, and Krem’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t want to hear nice, or reassuring, or anything that’s going to make him feel worse when his stomach is cramping and everything aches.

‘All due respect, Chief, can we drop it? Once I get paid I’ll go to Stitches, get the proper potions. Won’t be able to sack off any more drills.’ He tries for a lopsided smile.

Bull doesn’t return it. 

‘You ever pay for the healer in the army?’ His voice has an edge in it that Krem can’t put a finger on.

‘Of course. I mean the basics, wounds after battle, bashed up in training, no. Anything else, anything complicated, yeah. Got my course-bane back alley. Arm and a leg.’

There’s a pause. Bull thinks he’s free of tells, but Krem tracks the almost imperceptible tremor as it runs across his shoulders.

‘Oh good. Another reason to hate fucking ‘vints.’ He looks at Krem. Really looks, and Krem can see that his eyes are full of – something. But it isn’t pity, and it doesn’t make him want to punch anything. So there’s that. Something inside him that’s been jagged with pain relaxes, fractionally.

‘Should’ve talked you through the Chargers’ stuff when you joined up. Figured I’d give you some time to heal, get your head back round.’

Krem is listening, but he’s also suddenly doubled over with pain as a new wave of cramps twist through him. Fuck. Sweat pricks across his brow. What he’d give for an elfroot tea and a heavy sedative and something hot to press to his stomach.

He feels a hot hand against his lower back. Bull presses, slightly, and the muscles relax. Maker, the effect is immediate. Krem lets out a groan. Bull chuckles, shifts himself so he’s comfortable.

‘Nobody pays Stiches, except me. Company makes enough money. He needs anything fancy, he gets it. Need you all in fighting shape.’

Krem finds that he’s resting his head against Bull’s shoulder. He’s warm, and massive, and somehow it's the most soothing contact he can remember having.

‘And you’re not the only one on course-bane. And that’s not even fancy compared to what some of us get.’

With that, he stretches his leg out. Krem’s noticed it before, of course. Can’t share a tent with Bull without seeing his leg brace. Last thing to come off at night, first to go on in the morning. Soldiers don’t ask, though. He tells about the rest of his scars, big tall tales that Krem doesn’t quite believe, but he keeps quiet about this one. So, Krem’s kept quiet about it too.

‘See this? If its cold, raining, hurts worse than the day I got it. What Stitches brews me? I don’t even ask, but it keeps me fighting like the leg’s brand new.’

Its an offering. A secret for a secret.. Something held in common and quiet. Qunari mercenaries don’t reveal weakness, and Krem feels like he’s been given a gift, something somehow bigger than the words. His chest feels tight, again, but this time it isn’t the courses. Bull’s got a way, he realises, of making him feel normal.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t think he can, through the lump in his throat. Swallows hard instead, presses his head further into Bull’s warmth.

After a while, just sitting, breathing, Bull stirs. The loss of the hand on his back makes Krem want to complain, but he keeps quiet.

‘Gonna go get Stitches, Krem.’

‘Yeah, alright, Chief. If it’ll get you off my ass.’ He gets a proper grin in return this time.

‘Take the rest of the day off. I'll tell the Chargers you took a hit and you were too much of an asshole to get it seen to.’

Krem laughs at that. ‘Sure, yeah. Tell I’m just lying here, bleeding.’

Bull winks at him.

On his way out the tent, he turns back to face Krem.

‘You know what’s really good for cramps?’

‘Go on then, enlighten me.’

‘Orgasms.’

Bull watches as Krem’s face screws up into that ridiculous indignant-and-intrigued look that he gets whenever Bull makes filthy jokes.

‘You’re kidding, right?’

Bull doesn’t answer that, just calls over his shoulder, ‘I’ll be out the tent the rest of the day, Krem-puff, so just…’

Krem makes a gargled noise that probably means he’d punch Bull if it was worth the trouble of getting up.

‘That an order, Chief?’

Bull stops, surprised, and when he turns back, Krem’s smirking at him.

‘Yeah, guess it is. And I’ll want a detailed field report come nightfall, Lieutenant.’

And with that, he lets the tent flaps fall into place, and gathers himself for a second before he sets off to find Stitches.


End file.
